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I'm not endorsing this policy nor in any way recommending Google.  For the time being I'm using blogger.com to host my blog and blogger is owned by Google.  That's all. Thanks for visiting.

Changing Education

Education is going through a rough patch.  Parents becoming more activist.  Students daring to question the professor's own bias.  Debates on Common Core.

VOX Article: I'm and liberal professor and my liberal students terrify me. One professor's story about how his/her attitude toward teaching has changed since students started questioning the professor's biases and "bad things happen to too many good teachers".  It is an engaging piece although I tend to think some of the authors criticism could have been more accurately redirected toward educational administrators that are too willing to put their students welfare ahead of that of the teachers and professors. Why didn't the author criticize the university administration more? Review in ZeroHedge.

Its About Time... To Lock-em-up

Finally we are beginning to see some action from the regulators.  FINALLY!

Regulators are looking into various (price fixing, manipulation) activities of the banks.  In particular those activities that have elicited varying degrees of alarm (everything from raised eyebrows to outright shouting) from some people (mostly commentators that had little or no actual power).  For so long there has been nary a whisper or anything more than a "token" investigation of the banking and financial services industry by those in charge of regulation, supervision and enforcement : the regulators like the SEC, CFTC, FINRA, BAFIN, Bankruptcy Courts, even the Fed itself.

Here are some articles:

Jan 17 2014 - Deutsche Bank Exits Gold Price Fixing (ZeroHedge, Reuters)
Jan 16 2014 - Metals Currency Rigging Worse Than Libor (Bloomberg)
Jan 14 2014 - Worried Fed seeks to curb Wall Street Banks commodity trade (Reuters) link
Jan 14 2014 - Fed Sets broad probe of banks' commodity activity (MarketWatch) link

Let hope they are effective.  Else we are all doomed.

NASDAQ Shutdown Spurs People to Action

The three hour shutdown at NASDAQ today, 22-Aug-2013, prompts me to express my outrage. Even Jim Cramer, CNBC Mad Money is outraged and suggests something should be done by the SEC, the regulators, to figure out what happened.

NASDAQ officials are are keeping eerily quiet about the situation. Since when is it necessary that the NASDAQ, the supposed king of the electronic electronic exchanges keep quiet about the status of the exchange, not issue any statement, not issue any brief "feel good" message that they are doing everything to investigate the cause of the malfunction?  NASDAQ needs to say that they will do everything in their power and technology to get to the bottom of the problem and let it never happen again.

Well, I have a solution that should get their attention.  It happens from the retail investor side.  Call your stock broker, call your mutual fund manager, tell them to SELL EVERYTHING!.  That will get their attention. You cannot trust the action in the markets anymore.  They cater to the big guys, the investment bankers, the hedge funds, the high frequency traders.  The little guys are just raw meat for the grinder.

UNTIL THE MARKETS DEVELOP A NEW SENSE OF ORDER, RESPECT, AND FAIRNESS;

UNTIL THE EXCHANGES FIGURE OUT HOW TO REGULATE HFTs;

UNTIL THE REGULATORS START TO ENFORCE THE RULES;

JUST STOP TRADING.

PULL YOUR MONEY OUT.

TELL YOUR BROKER AND YOUR CONGRESSMEN WHY YOU ARE DOING IT.

More news:

1. NYSE Arca and NASDAQ SIP blame each other for trading "glitch" (link)
2. SEC to meet with Exchange Heads on Sept 12 over Outage (Yahoo)
3. Nasdaq, NYSE at odds on outage cause as SEC seeks facts (Yahoo)

Make a Difference and Become Involved, Let Your Voice Be Heard

Why aren't you more involved with government? Why not get involved with debates about where this country is heading and how we are going to get there? Maybe you don't have the time or you don't know how to write your congress people. Whatever the reason, the best time to stop being passive and start becoming active is right now!
There is now an easy to make your voice heard and hopefully, (just maybe) you too can make a difference: sign a petition on https://petitions.whitehouse.gov where they say:

“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”— President Barack Obama

(Mind you, I'm not normally a big fan of Obama, but in this statement I whole-heartedly agree!)

Here are some examples of petitions (there are many more):

Petition	Link
Perform an assayed public audit of all the Treasury’s claimed 8,100 tons of gold and net of swaps, loans and sales.	http://wh.gov/PQxr
Place all members of the government under the same healthcare legislation that ordinary citizens are, with no exceptions.	http://wh.gov/PNgM

That petition to "Perform an assayed public audit of all the Treasury’s claimed 8,100 tons of gold"?

Here is what the folks over at ZeroHedge have to say about it:

That is one petition, which unlike all the other gimmicky wastes of time, that we (and certainly the German people if not the Bundesbank) would wholeheartedly endorse, and one which we hope promptly crosses the 25,000 signature threshold needed for a formal response from the White House.

Sadly, the response will be one denying what the people demand, but it will be interesting to see just what excuse the White House uses to shoot down an idea that is far more worthy of people's time and attention than "minting" coins whose only real symbolism is that America is flat broke.

Let 's change that and all get active!  Sign this petition now!

Facebook IPO

[2012.05.18] Is Facebook IPO the fantastic opportunity that many hope for?

[WSJ] Facebook Readies IPO Filing http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577187062821038498.html

Or a risk that inflated expectations will not be met? I am glad some people are asking themselves these questions:

[Financial Times] Critical scrutiny awaits Facebook’s IPO  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/68da0002-4aa6-11e1-8110-00144feabdc0.html

[2012.09.05] That IPO didn't turn out that well did it?  It didn't even take 4 months for this implosion.

The Apple Factory

This American(?) Life visits the Apple Factory in China: Read the transcript or listen to the audio of the show which has more emotional nuance.

Read Why Apple Makes iPhones In China and Why America’s Factories are Screwed for more discussion.

Apple Reports Earnings: [WSJ] Apple registered earnings of $13.1 billion, or $13.87 a share, up from $6 billion, or $6.43 a share. Revenue surged 73% to $46.33 billion. About 58% of revenue came from international sales.  [BetweenTheNumbers] reports that at the recent valuation of Apple shares ($455) the market capitalization of Apple was briefly higher than the GDP of Greece. (This is not really a fair apples-to-apples comparison, pun intended).

Lest you get too depressed by all this news, over at Google, an entirely different funny geek theme emerges, that of the Badass Engineer. However, much of this humor is directed at an audience of software engineers, so I give a fair warning to non-geeks.

Visualize the All the World's Gold

05-Jan-2012: This fact-filled graphic was just posted on ZeroHedge All The World's Gold
That is 165,000 metric tons = $8,487,797,102,400.00 at $1,600 per troy ounce.

25-Jan-2012: Of course you could laugh at all the news from the SLV fund and the January 25 Fed announcement RNN examines the Gold and Silver price action after the Fed's FOMCAnnouncement

Inspirations for 2012

Recharge your batteries with Sarah Peck's amazing Do Something SlideShare and then continue to her blog for more interesting readings.

If you are statistically inclinded, see Incredible Things that Happen Every 60 Seconds on the Internet

I don't think either of these things have much to do with the other.  In fact, the anti-couch-potato musings of Sarah Peck are probably the polar opposite and antidote to the "drown me in an ocean of meaningless facts, Facebook updates, Tweets, and other trivia" that the Internet dishes out every second of every day.

More MF Global and What it Means

02-Feb-2012 - Yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-mf-global-triggers-regulatory-220755040.html CFTC Considering extensive changes to how it regulates and reviews commodity trading institutions:

"Under the current regulatory system, the CFTC does not examine any futures commission merchants such as MF Global itself and instead is reliant on self-regulatory organizations such as CME to oversee them. Gensler has said it is not an ideal system."

"The CFTC changes being proposed would be divided into three groups.
The first batch would include changes to internal policies and procedures, and would most likely not be made public. A second group would involve changes to CFTC rules, and would need to be put out for public comment. The third group would result in changes to the law and would require action from Congress."

28-Jan-2012 ZeroHedge - 3 Months after MF Global Bankruptcy, investigators think the money vaporized.



11 Dec 2011 Unambiguous Wealth 2 – The MF Global Chronicles http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2011/12/unambiguous-wealth-2-mf-global.html

01 Dec 2011 Unambiguous Wealth: http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2011/12/unambiguous-wealth.html

Let's just see what are the objectives of the regulators of the USA, shall we?

SEC - The mission of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.


CFTC - "The CFTC's mission is to protect market users and the public from fraud, manipulation, abusive practices and systemic risk related to derivatives that are subject to the Commodity Exchange Act, and to foster open, competitive, and financially sound markets."


CME Group, which is composed of four Designated Contract Markets (DCMs) or Exchanges called the CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX, Although all four exchanges have been merged to form CME Group, each exchange remains a separate self-regulatory organization. Although the individual exchange rulebooks have been substantially harmonized, important differences remain.


Further information on each exchange's rules and product listings can be found by clicking on the links to CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX.



US Dept of Treasury

Federal Reserve

FINRA

Merry Christmas 2011 and Happy New Year 2012

Fed Christmas Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk4AJHJuxUo

Twas the Night Before (Eurocrash) Christmas

Bull in a China Shop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk_zpMory-0

China Gold Bull in Huaxi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC-NQ2tHiE8

Ron Paul 2012

I had a nice big sign (about 2 ft x 4 ft) on my front lawn "Ron Paul for President 2012".

Someone stole it.

My message is: "The United States has a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, and the First Amendment states: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'. 

I fight for your right to free speech.

Why don't you respect my right of free speech?"

I think I will replace the sign.

Measurement Moron

Here is a funny story.  

The other day I went to the bagel shop deli to pick up some breakfast.  I asked for a dozen bagels and 6 oz or so of sliced Lox.  The girl came back after a few minutes with a puzzled look and asked "6 oz of Lox is barely one slice, do you really want 60 oz?"

Incredulous at the idea of geting nearly four pounds of Lox, I said "No, I want about 6 oz, just slightly less than one-half of a pound."

Acting as if she knew what I wanted, she said, "Oh, OK" and flitted back to the weighing machine.

After I bought and paid for my items, I looked at the package of Lox.  It said exactly 0.60 lbs. 

What do you think happened?  

I guess the deli scale reads in decimal measures of pounds, rather than pounds and ounces. 

And it seems obvious that she did not know the difference between ounces and hundredths of pounds and probably didn’t know there are 16 ounces in a pound.  She may only vaguely realize that pounds is a unit of weight.

Here is my reconstruction of what probably happened behind the deli counter.  Originally, when I asked for 6 ounces, she started putting Lox on the scale.  After the first slice, it probably read 0.06 or more which caused her to come back to me to clarify what I meant by "6 oz".  After I said "slightly less than half a pound", something clicked in her head so she must have known that "one half" was a reading of 0.50, but she still went back to the scale and gave me 0.60 pounds of Lox.

She probably doesn’t even know what she doesn’t know.  She certainly did not ask me, "Ok, I don’t know about 6 oz, do you know what that is in pounds or how many slices?"

SAD, VERY SAD – It seems our educational system is failing our youth in some subtle and not so subtle ways. 

US Federal Reserve (THE FED)

21 Dec 2011 - Fed proposes rules to tame Wall Street risk-taking
Fed gives banks another "pat on the back, job well done".  Although Dodd-Frank bill was advertised as putting tough new rules on banks, the Fed now shows its hand: the rules will not be any tougher than agreed international rules (Basel III).  Meanwhile, two days ago the price of Bank of America sank below $5/share on a closing basis- below the minimum price level that some funds have for their equity holdings.  Until banks go back to showing bars of gold in their vaults, why should anyone trust them?

MF Global

Does anyone really believe the MF Global executives when they say the "have no idea" what happen to over $1.2 billion of customer funds? This is such a bald-faced lie that I cannot imagine our Congresspeople and investigators cannot see through this scam.

MF Global is a fraud and a criminal enterprise. They have been lying about their misappropriation of customer funds for use in their own proprietary trading schemes in every deposition and so-called "investigation". Claims of ignorance and shoddy record keeping are nothing but a smoke screen.

Logic calls out for a different interpretation. I know from vast experience of building such electronic marketplaces that all electronic trading systems are designed with a series of audit trails and logs such that every order, every action, and every trade is captured with virtually 100% accuracy. The systems know to the penny what each customer account is worth at every second of every day, within small differences only due to fluctuating prices of assets. In addition every electronic funds transfer is logged with meticulous accuracy and attention to detail. And 99% of all that information is flowing through the computer systems without ever being touch by human hands.

So the question about the “missing customer money” should be turned into a series of technical questions:

• Do you have systems to track the flow of funds?
• Do you have systems to track the orders and trades executed by customers?
• Do you have similar systems for your proprietary traders?
• How accurate are these systems?
• What percentage of assets and funds transfers must be manually reconciled at the end of each trading day?
• Do the systems ever cross each other?  In what way?
• Are you required by regulators such as FINRA and the SEC / CFTC to maintain records?

In my estimation you will see a technical picture of amazing attention to details -- with obvious places to look for the $1.2 billion dollars, which I assure you did not simply vanish into thin air!  Yet the picture that the MF Global senior management is trying paint is one of complexity, confusion, irregularities, and ignorance. 

13 Dec 2011 - MF Global Conflicted Interested Parties (Tough Questions for MF Global, Conflicted Trustee Giddens & SIPC President Harbeck): http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/tough-questions-mf-global-conflicted-trustee-giddens-sipc-president-harbeck

13 Dec 2011 - Second Senate hearing on MF Global bankruptcy: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/13/us-mfglobal-hearing-highlights-idUSTRE7BC1AV20111213 

14 Dec 2011 - MF's Corzine said to know of customer fund misuse:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/14/us-mfglobal-hearing-idUSTRE7BC1AE20111214 
 
So you can begin to understand quote like these:
 
CHAIRWOMAN DEBBIE STABENOW ON FRUSTRATION OVER LACK OF ANSWERS:



"It's now been a month and a half since the firm collapsed and customer money is still nowhere to be found. This isn't the Dark Ages. MF Global didn't keep their books with feather quills and dusty ledgers. The rules about keeping customer money segregated are pretty straightforward. That it's been over a month, and teams of lawyers and forensic accountants still can't figure out what happened, raises very troubling questions."

LOTS, LOTS MORE on MF Global is here http://barnhardt.biz/index.cfm

Let's pray for the farmers, investors, and other people who had money tied up in MF Global that justice is eventually served and the criminals are punished.  Write your congresspeople and demand that justice is served and the rule of law is upheld!

21 Dec 2011 - E-Mail Clues in Tracking MF Global Client Funds "Ms. O’Brien is considered an expert of sorts on the protection of customer money at futures firms."  yet she, a treasurer at MF Global, appears to be directly implicated in the transfer of customer money to JP Morgan. [...] "Since MF Global’s collapse, Ms. O’Brien has been working for the trustee overseeing the liquidation of the firm’s brokerage unit, helping lawyers and accountants understand the firm’s operations.".  How convenient!  Sounds like we are letting the criminals themselves investigate the crime scene.  She should be behind bars or in the witness room surrounded by forensic accountants and tape recorders.